Neil Young, Jonathan Demme prepare for 'Journeys'

June 29, 2012|Greg Kot | Music critic

Demme: We had been so scrupulous with the hand-crafted, elegant design of “Neil Young: Heart of Gold,” we wanted to be extremely spontaneous in “Trunk Show”: Hand-held cameras, no fixed camera positions, wanting to respond very in the moment. “Neil Young Journeys” was a huge undertaking. I wanted to see the shows, to know it better and better. I went to about four performances over a year. My aim was to keep it simpler, shoot the guitar beautifully at all times. Assign a camera to the guitar every time. Two beautiful close-ups to capture every word. And then a couple cameras a little more spontaneous searching for stuff. The deeper you get into it, you realize how extremely autobiographical the process is for Neil.

Q: The personal level of the songs really is key. “Hitchhiker” and “Love and War” – you’re really tough on yourself in those songs, Neil. Is writing and performing those songs a way of explaining your behavior to yourself or the people you may have hurt, or maybe making amends?

Young: I don’t think of it that way. I don’t have the preconceptions of what I’m doing. I just do it. I perform it. Those are personal songs. I think they represent other things, not just me. I feel if I’m true to myself and what I’m writing that other people will believe it’s about them too.

Demme: Yes. I am so nuts about “Hitchhiker.” In the stage show it comes earlier than it does in the movie. But it’s a showstopper. There is almost nowhere to go after you perform it, so I put it later in the film. It’s a lot of things. A love song to (Young’s wife) Pegi, and a song to encourage anyone who’s having a hard time. It’s like, “You think you can’t get out of the fix you’re in? Listen to what I’ve been through.”

Young: Until the next one (laughs).

Q: What inspired the camera on the microphone stand, which turns a couple of songs into these really intense, almost bizarre close-ups of Neil singing?

Demme: That angle is shot from a camera that is smaller than a cigarette pack, mounted on the microphone stand. Our cinematographer Declan Quinn was obsessed with getting a close-up of Neil, the singer, without a microphone in the foreground. He wanted a clean close-up, which is impossible because everyone sings so close to the microphone. So Declan had this camera screwed onto the mike stand in such a way that there would be this beautiful up angle into Neil’s face. But the nut loosened, and it became a close-up of Neil’s mouth, the portal through which the lyrics and voice emerge. And Declan was upset. But I thought it was a great gift from the gods of cinema. I knew it was an angle that we never could have dreamed up, but that also could overstay its welcome. But because of the intensity of “Down by the River,” and what this tortured guy is confiding to us, we should be this close to this guy. And on “Hitchhiker,” a little bit of saliva went on the lens, it became this deranged angle for a deranged narrative. It became absolutely the only shot to go with. It was a fortuitous little blessing.

Young: Interestingly enough, that camera angle only happens on E minor chords (laughs). Those are the only E minor chords in the show.

Q: Music affects everything. What about your new album with Crazy Horse? “Americana” is kind of a historical time trip into classic folk songs. Was that a way in for you to make new music with these guys?

Young: I was writing a book, a memoir, when I did those sessions with Crazy Horse, and I was writing about playing those songs with the Squires, my first band in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1964. A band named the Thorns came through the club where we were the house band. And they did this version of “O Susanna,” that Tim Rose, who was in the Thorns, arranged. And it really impressed me, so we learned it and played it in the Squires. And then we did “My Darling Clementine,” “Tom Dula,” a bunch of others. I was writing about that, so as I was starting a new album with Crazy Horse, we started playing those songs. It was pretty natural. And before we knew, we had a whole album of material that fit together.